Veronica Pinero's presentation, Panopticism vis-a-vis criminal records, had an interesting graphic which I've reproduced on the right. It's a map of all the sex offenders living within a 10-block radius of the CFP conference hotel.
The thing that strikes me is how fear-inducing this list is, both because of what it says and what it leaves out. It includes a map, showing that we're surrounded by no less than 39 sex offenders, and gives their names, mean-looking photos, and the name of the crime they were convicted of. What it leaves out is exactly where they are (addresses only within 100 numbers) and any sort of details of the crime that might help people figure out whether they or their children are actually at risk. I expect most of these guys did horrible things (is there any way "child molestation" can be better than it sounds?). Some I have no idea about, like "indecent liberties," or even whether "child rape" includes a 19-year-old having sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend. More importantly, I don't have any way to tell how frightened I should be or what I should do about it. Avoid downtown? Lock myself in my house? Buy duct tape? What good is this information to us, beyond making us even more afraid than we already are?
Posted by bug to Big Brother at April 12, 2005 2:37 PM | TrackBackThis is what we need now, enough coddling of these offenders. We need to protect our oved ones and stop giving offenders all the rights, Sex Offender Legislation “Wish List”
1- GPS and lifetime supervision/treatment Law The failure of today's solutions regarding sexual offenders is because we are stuck in the strategy of “public notification” rather than “controlling offenders”. The current model puts the burden on parents rather than offenders, and makes the wrong people work to prevent abuse. Remotely (GPS) knowing where an offender is at all times throughout his lifetime can help to prevent that offender from creating new cases of sexual abuse.
2- Include all known offenders in the management plan-for life. It is wrong to include just those under supervision since the Meagan’s Law was written. People do not ever age out of this behavior so why an old is charge less important than a new charge. Sexual offences are the most under reported crimes (according to the FBI). The fact that a molester has not been arrested recently does not necessarily means he has not offended. In my opinion all offenders should be included in any plan, regardless of when their offense occurred. I believe some states have done this already.
3- Put all offenders , levels I, II or III on the website . I believe Florida does this. The leveling tool is very poor and pedophiles often end up with only a level I because they did not use force, and they superficially complied with treatment. The way the leveling system works pedophilic “groomers” who do not use force (and are the most busy of all offenders with hundreds of victims) are often not level III’s and therefore are able to have their offense relatively unknown. In New York for example offenders can lawyer up and reduce the “level” they get at their hearing. Molesters can assert they are “non violent”, “sober”, ect, and get the “points” reduced or get the judge to “override” the scale. Currently the public notification system is failing. All offenders of all levels should be on the website.
4- “Victim Shield Law”. As you know one of the few protections we offer rape victims is “Rape shield laws”, in order to at least try and prevent a rape victim’s sexual history from being put on trial rather than the rapist. In child sexual abuse cases there are no “Rape shield laws” to prevent the victim, or the victim’s family (often the mother) from being made the center of negative attention. In the past defense lawyers for rapists would portray rape victims as promiscuous, today child molester’s lawyers portray victims and victim’s mothers as manipulative, litigious, unreliable, angry, mentally ill, sociopathic, medicated, or undedicated. Because we as a society love to blame women, especially mothers, molesters have been able to harness the misogyny in our culture in order to escape responsibility for their offences. Like the old rape cases that would revolve around the victims sexual past, today molester cases revolve around a child or a mother’s real or fictional problems instead of the focus of attention being the sexual abuse committed by the offender. I do not know if there can ever be a “victim shield law” to prevent the victim/victim’s mother being put on trial rather than the molester, but I know it would help victims avoid being re-traumatized in the system and help society hold sexual offenders accountable. One of the things to always remember with offenders is they are control seekers, and will take any opportunity to attack rather than just defend. They feel entitled to their behavior and see being held accountable as an injustice they are being forced to suffer, and they have zero guilt in harming any number of people (even their children) in order to escape the consequences they deserve.
5- Plea deals down to “Endangering the welfare of a minor”. Despite the underlying behavior being the sexual abuse of children offenders are often given convictions that hide the nature of their behavior. When this happens offenders can get employment that gives them access to children, offenders are not on the State Sex Offender Registry. The other consequence to their being given non-sexual charges is that it cuts their supervision time in half. Misdemeanor sex offences carry 6 years probation supervision but “Endangering the welfare of a minor” carries only three. I feel the law should be changed so offenders cannot be given non-sexual abuse charges.
6- Make “Endangering the welfare of a minor” registerable , if the judge feels it was a sexually motivated crime. The registry is to narrow and limited as to what crimes can be registered. Laws be changed so “endangering the welfare of a minor” is registerable when the behavior or motivation was sexual.
7- “Standardized” conditions for those on sex offender probation. Right now offenders with good lawyers can get specific (or all) sex offender conditions removed from their sexual offender conditions of probation. This means that sexual offenders are on probation but are allowed to drink alcohol, work with children, have computers, go to bars, and do other things that will create a higher risk for the community. I feel there should be a “Statewide Sex Offender Conditions of Probation” that conditions cannot be removed from (but conditions can be added to suite the offenders issues).
8- Sexual Offender Contraband law- Strangely it is legal for sexual offenders off probation to own all kinds of things such as handcuffs, police lights, spy cameras, and software to make their internet behavior more anonymous.
9- Sex Offender use of technology law- When bank robbers use technology such as wearing body armor the penalties are increased, why are sex offender allowed to use any technology without added consequences. Offenders choose the internet because it allows greater access to children and greater anonymity. They should be punished for use of technology to harm a child. (technology such as Computers, digital cameras, webcams, ect)
10- “Secrecy Bind Law” The offender getting his victim to not report the crime he committed should be a separate crime that he suffers added consequences for. The pain that a victim suffers because the offender threatened, tricked, or manipulated the victim into silence should be seen as a separate and deserving of added consequences.
11- “Parental Alienation Syndrome” is a pseudo syndrome that is being used to get offenders off the hook by saying (incorrectly) that sexual abuse allegations come from a manipulative ex- playing head games with a child rather than because the child was actually molested. This “Parental Alienation Syndrome” is not a legitimate disorder, has not been subjected to peer review, has been ignored for 20 years by the APA, AMA, NASW, ECT because it is just a sophisticated way to say your wife is crazy and turned everyone against you. It is being pushed by hired guns such as Doctors, PhD’s, and lawyers to get their child molesting clients out of trouble. It is a favorite of the “Fathers Rights” groups who see men as victims of the Family Court system. By the way, these “Fathers rights” groups, “wrongly accused” groups, and “victims of allegations” groups are very organized and spend a good deal of time and energy networking and paying professionals. These angry, entitled molesters are organized and work hard, and I feel we need to work just as hard against them. My point is I feel we need some legislation to block this fake disorder from being used in court.
I understand your concerns. Let me give you another perspective. I have a 13 year old that was recently convicted of a sex crime against his yourger sibling. The system is hard at work to destroy the entire family. Your idea of accountability is one thing, however, why would you destroy this kids entire life. As of today, everything I have read tells me that nobody really knows what the end result of this stringent profiling and hard arm of the law really does for a juvenile. Let me give you some facts:
Would you put an alcoholic in a treatment center that contained alcohol?
Would you put a drug adict in a treatment center that contained drugs?
Would you continuously humiliate these people daily for the rest of their lives?
Probably not, but that's what the general public thinks will work with kids. Not only do you destroy their lives, but also the lives of the family. This could happen to anyone. It even happens in rich families. Why do you not hear about the rich kid getting charged? Because if you have enough money you can have anything you want. So, tell me sir, if we convict our children when they're 10 and then stay on top of them with the legal system's sick idea of treatment for the rest of their lives, what have you really done?
The people that need the convictions are the adults. Stop destroying our kids. Maybe a little therapy (or a lot of therapy) would help. Maybe we should find out what caused a child to go astray? Could it have been enivoronment? Could it have been our pristine society? Could it be too much money? Or could it be that some sick adult is out there doing it to our kids. Maybe our legal system has found someone they can offend and it makes people feel good. Leave the black mark somewhere else and pretend "it can't happen to me". If it ever does, I can assure you that your viewpoints of the legal justice correction system truly doesn't have all the answers and there is no legal system or incarceration center that will fix it.
TIME TO PUNISH THE PUNISHERS!
Serious sexual predators involved in abduction and rape, whether they prey on women or children need continuous supervision or indeterminate jail.
I know of someone who conducted an abduction of a boy and sexual assault, he quite rightly went to prison and a police visit to his home occurred occasionally. He was not a monster and did not re-offend. Making him leave home because there was a bus stop sometimes used by school children (a law in one U.S. state) would have been monstrous and may have even make him think there was nothing to lose by re-offending!
However those "thought criminals" convicted of voyeuristic offences such as viewing violent or child pornography (often involving only nudism) and those convicted of consensual under-age sex, along with position of trust offences (attractive female teachers in a relationship with a teenage pupil) must be protected from the present "sexual psuedo-crime" laws promoted by another form of criminal, the abusophile. Abusophiles are a form of legal predator misusing sexual offences legislation in a moral/evangelical crusade directed at innocent people.
I therefore propose that retroactive legislation be enacted to make those behind the new sexual psuedo-crime laws fully accountable, in both criminal and civil law, for the appalling human rights abuses created by the unjustified expansion of the definition of "sexual offences" and I will (in the U.K.) be lobbying parliament to enact such legislation.
I will also be lobbying parliament for those involved in the war on drugs to face similar retroactive legislation, so that those in power do not seek to ruin lives so lightly in future.
Also I will seek military action to recover Daisy Angus from illegal (savage drug law) detention in India.
P.S. I would welcome moral support for my views but do not wish to talk to those with a paedophile agenda, which in the age of AIDS is a stupid idea from the point of public health.
Nor do I approve of drugs- although they should be completely decriminalised.
james.edward@tesco.net
Posted by: at February 14, 2007 5:21 PMI NEED TO KNOW IF SOMEONE IS ACCUSED OF BEING A SEX OFFENDER, BUT NEVER CONVICTED OF A CRIME, LOSE THEIR CHILDREN? WHAT IF THEY ARE FAUSELY ACCUSED? JUST BECAUSE OF SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED WHEN THEY WERE UNDER AGE? THE CHILD PROTECTION AGENCY AUTOMATICALLY ASSUMES THEY ARE GUILTY, MY BROTHER KILLED HIMSELF BECAUSE OF LOSING HIS CHILDREN DUE TO AN ACCUSATION THAT WAS MADE, BUT HE WAS NEVER CONVICTED OF ANYTHING. DON'T THEY NEED SOME KIND OF PROOF? MY BROTHER DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A CRIMINAL RECORD!
Posted by: at May 17, 2007 4:25 PM